In Secular France, Catholic Conservatism Makes A Comeback By James McAuley December 8. CHARTRES, France ó For many French voters, FranÁois Fillon is more than a leading contender for president in next yearís elections: He is viewed as a crusader in the throes of a holy war. When Fillon handily won both rounds of Franceís conservative primaries last month, he campaigned mostly on a genteel conservatism of economic restructuring and strengthened national security. But in a country that firmly defines itself as ďsecularĒ in its constitution, Fillonís unexpected victory represented an astonishing prospect: the political reawakening of Catholic France after...

Party of secularism, socialism, and globalism For the last 8 years, Democrats have taken great satisfaction in referring to the GOP as a ďsmall, regional, party.Ē Despite big mid-term wins, Dems believed theyíd crushed their opponents once and for all. Obama was popular, people were just going to love ObamaCare, and the country was moving left on social issues. Then Donald Trump happened. Now, Democrats have a historically low number of office holders. As Ohio Representative Tim Ryan says in the clip below, Dems are ďat the smallest number of Democratic members of our caucus since 1929,Ē and currently boast...

The soon-to-be White House chief strategist laid out a global vision in a rare 2014 talk, one where he said racism in the far right gets ďwashed outĒ and called Vladimir Putin a kleptocrat. BuzzFeed News publishes the complete transcript for the first time.

The challenge of racial division in America today is not just that there are forces pushing us apart, but that we've lost the things that held us together. Relations between black people and white people are probably at their worst in anyone's lifetime, with most of those divisions exacerbated dramatically in the last handful of years. The reasons for that have more to do with the manipulation of racial animosity than the reality of the racial situation. Politicians and activists, each standing to benefit by pitting people against one another, have whipped up an internal and seemingly unresolvable conflict between...

As dawn broke in Istanbul on Saturday, Turkey's largest city, it was still unclear whether an attempt by the military to wrest control from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had been successful. A defiant Erdogan addressed crowds in the city, telling them that the coup had been quashed. "The government is in control," he told supporters.

Australia has a program in its schools that, at first glance, youíd have to be crazy to be against. Itís called Safe Schools, and it is an anti-bullying campaign.Well, at least thatís how it has been promoted.In reality, Safe Schools has become a pro-LGBTQI indoctrination system designed by one academic Marxist with hopes of replacing the Australian flag with a red one, and another who has, in academic theory, supported pedophilia. The program consists of: allowing students to wear whatever uniforms that they want; encouraging schools to allow bathroom use by any gender; promoting homosexual and transgender role-play in...

Tuesday, after FBI director James Comey spent about 15 minutes laying out the legal case against Hillary Clinton and then spent about three minutes declaring that he was going to ignore the evidence and recommend no legal action against Mrs. Clinton, TheBlaze's Matt Walsh declared that "The law is Dead." Walsh wrote: July 5, 2016. 11:15 a.m. One day after America's 240th birthday. When historians conduct their autopsy on Lady Justice, that will be the time of death. That is the precise moment when Justice drew her last labored breath, cursed our ridiculous country and our hopelessly corrupt government, and...

The secular reprobate mind is filled with violence, moral relativism and lawlessness designs and its actions have ravished this nation since the 60's beyond all recognition of what the founding fathers envisioned. Let us first look at the barbaric act of abortion. Since 1973 there has been 55 million abortions of our American children. May I say that NO gun has ever achieved that statistic not even all the combined arsenal of WW2! The abortion agenda of the Left is the holy grail of their godless ideology. The abortion ideology is a narcissistic ideology, which at its core is rooted...

Zoos with humans on display; an academic who wishes publicly that 90 percent of humans would perish from ebola; suicide tourists; ‚Äúafter-birth abortions‚ÄĚ ‚Äď what is the world coming to? In a new book, The Death of Humanity: And the Case for Life, history professor Richard Weikart examines the intellectual currents that produce these shocking phenomena and defends the sanctity of human life. Here, Professor Weikart answers some questions from MercatorNet. ‚ÄėThe Death of Humanity‚Äô is a sombre title. Are things really that bad? What do you mean by it?My title refers to the way that many intellectuals and scholars...

People often speak of places of sanctuary, where they feel most free and where they can ďbreathe.Ē One such place for meóa former high school teacheróis within the walls of a school. There is something invigorating and God-inspired in having people of different ages, backgrounds, and experiences exercise their minds around common subjects and principles, learn the facets of the world, and seek answers about their place in it. Whether in the context of a public or private educational institution, this wide-open breath of a school community has always provided me a true sense of freedom.Presently, however, the air...

FEMINIST CELEB: We need ĎEuthanasia Vansí to drive around and get rid of all the old people Katie Hopkins suggests that we create ďeuthanasia vansĒ that drives door-to-door and kills off the elderly. ďWe just have far too many old people,Ē the feminist says. ďItís ridiculous to be living in a country where we can put dogs to sleep but not people.Ē According to Hopkins, this can be carried out stylistically, you know, with a flair. ďEuthanasia vans ó just like ice-cream vans ó that would come to your home,Ē Hopkins says ďIt would all be perfectly charming. They might...

An atheist member of the Arizona House denied the chance to deliver the chamber's opening prayer by majority Republican leaders last month got the opportunity Thursday, only to see leaders rule his prayer didn't pass muster and call up a Christian pastor. The opening prayer by Democrat Juan Mendez included a call to work to help the state and its residents flourish and to "honor the Constitution and the secular equality it brings." But he didn't pray to any deity, which infuriated some Republicans who are Christians. Mendez said before the session that he had been invited to deliver the...

Off the record, a colleague of mine with decades of hospice experience predicted to me that the government would eventually get rid of the requirement that hospices hire chaplains. This particularly caught me off guard because I had just procured such a position with Center for Hope Hospice in Elizabeth, NJ. He elaborated that "the government wants to save money. They say America is becoming more secularized anyway, and so chaplains aren't needed all that much." Not that my shiny new job offer was about to vanish and "go gentle into that good night," but I was nettled by the...

The words that we use matter. When we speak using terms from Torah, our intention is clear. We believe that Torah is the source of our moral values. But once we start using English terms and ideas, we enter a dangerous philosophical minefield. We use words thinking that we‚Äôre expressing Torah ideas, but without realizing it, we are employing secular ideas as well. One prime example is "human rights." People use this term as if it's some kind of innate, obvious Truth, yet they fail to explain why it is so. Where oh where do these "human rights" come from...

Which is obvious to anyone not intentionally misreading it. The real news here is not that Antonin Scalia said this, but that it‚Äôs the slightest bit controversial. But that‚Äôs not something that happened overnight. The secular left and their media servants have spent decades pushing the idea that the establishment clause is about protecting the non-religious from maniacal Jesus freaks - especially the nightmare scenario in which the Jesus freaks get a job with any public entity and are guided in any decision by biblical principles. Scalia is a man who actually knows about the founding of the nation and...

We‚Äôve all heard of people doing something secular in a ‚Äúreligious‚ÄĚ way, and one area of life to which that applies is sports and physical fitness.Now, some are suggesting that the culture surrounding training gyms may very well fall under the umbrella of religion.The New York Times√ā¬†noted recently√ā¬†that in a society that is increasingly secular, many people are applying their religious sensibility to athletic activity. Many of the parallels with religion can be found, the newspaper√ā¬†noted, in a Crossfit gym: adherents getting out of bed at an ungodly hour in order to spend a significant amount of time in...

Today is the first day of Advent, which marks the start of the pre-Christmas season. It is observed by many, if not most, of the Catholic faithful. And it is in popularity among Protestants, particularly those of us who count ourselves evangelical Christians. Advent begins four Sundays before Christmas and ends on Christmas Eve. During that four-week period, the Christian faithful prepare for the commemoration of the birth of Christ. Satan hates Advent. That‚Äôs because he wants to take the ‚ÄúChrist‚ÄĚ out of Christmas. He doesn‚Äôt want Christmas to be a Godly ‚Äúholy-day.‚ÄĚ Rather, his aim is to reduce the...

The fact that more than sixty percent of the Irish electorate supported an amendment to the nation's constitution recognizing same-sex "marriage" caught many people by surprise last spring. They may have been clinging to an outdated image of Ireland as a bastion of devout Catholicism. Unfortunately there are further disturbing changes that are being advanced. One is more symbolic. Many, including a former news director of the national radio and television station, are asking that the broadcasting of the Angelus be dropped. It is viewed as an anachronism in an Ireland that has "an increasingly multi-ethnic, multi-faith population," and is...

The death of Europe is in sight. Still hazy and not yet inevitable, but nevertheless visible and drawing nearerólike a distant planet in the lens of an approaching satellite. Europe is reaching its end not because of its sclerotic economy, or stagnant demography, or the dysfunctions of the superstate. Nor is the real cause the massive influx of Middle Eastern and African migrants. Those desperate people are just the latest stiff breeze against the timber of a desiccated civilization. Europe is dying because it has become morally incompetent. It isnít that Europe stands for nothing. Itís that it stands for...

A remarkable turn for a school named for a minister, via The Washington Post: † †A†Harvard†Crimson poll†of the universityís†class of 2019†provides a glimpse into the beliefs and practices of incoming freshman, including sex, politics and drug use. Some of the interesting findings included the religious breakdown, especially when compared to other millennials in the U.S.Harvardís combined number of atheists and agnostics among its incoming class exceeds the number of Catholics and Protestants, as Pew Research Centerís Conrad Hackett†noted. The number appears to be†a striking contrast with the rest of the U.S. millennial population, those from ages 18 to 34.Pewís...

If there is one thing consistent about the tides of the culture wars, it is that whenever one side is emboldened, it inevitably leads to overreach. The secular Left is proving this point with gusto in the wake of the Supreme Courtís decision to nationalize gay marriage, calling for the removal of tax exemptions for churches and religious non-profits who continue to hold the tired old definition of marriage that existed all the way up until yesterday. This step, which would crush the budgets of many churches and non-profits, reveals an amusing hypocrisy of the modern Leftís turn against civil...

† † † † Lyrics: The economy is shrinkingOur money is a jokeWe should go back to trading seashellsAnd just admit that we're brokeAnd our food supply is shrinking(yeah, yeah)But we continue happily(yeah, yeah)Building condos on farm land(yeah, yeah)And dumping sewage in the sea(yeah, yeah) Someone's talking 'bout a big ideaSomeone's talking 'bout a higher visionEverybody's on the runLookin' out for number oneAnd your big ideas don't fit Big ideas in the shrinking worldBig ideas in the shrinking worldBig ideas in the shrinking worldWell you make us real nervous with your big ideas Our water is shrinkingAll the pipes...

Some readers may remember the post about Ulf Ekman, a prominent Evangelical pastor who stunned the world when he announced last year he was becoming Catholic.Now, an update, The National Catholic Register: On March 9, 2014,†Ulf Ekman, founder and pastor of Word of Life church in Uppsala, Sweden, shocked his congregation with the announcement that he and his wife, Birgitta, were leaving Word of Life to join the Catholic Church. The Ekmansí decision created a commotion, not only among the Protestant faithful, but even throughout decidedly secular Sweden.The Ekmans will present their story at the†ďDefending the Faith ConferenceĒ†July 24-26 at...

NBC has canceled A.D. The Bible Continues after just one season, Deadline reports. The miniseries, created by Roma Downey and Mark Burnett, was a follow-up to their record-breaking miniseries The Bible, and chronicled the early days of modern Christianity. A.D., which premiered on Easter, was positioned as an event series at NBC, but Downey, Burnett and the network had indicated that subsequent seasons were part of the plan. It's possible that the show will continue on another platform

If you doubt that Christians are fair game for ridicule by the cultural left, take a look at the hit piece on Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia by Jeffrey Tayler for Salon. I can't decide which is worse, the title or the subtitle. The title: "Antonin Scalia is unfit to serve: A justice who rejects science and the law for religion is of unsound mind." The subtitle: "The justice claims to be an originalist, but his real loyalty is to religion and a phony man in the sky." The writer is trying to be cute, but don't conclude that any...

A conversation with Peter SeewaldIn his futuristic novel Brave New World, the British author Aldous Huxley had predicted in 1932 that falsification would be the decisive element of modernity. In a false reality with its false truth ‚Äď or the absence of truth altogether ‚Äď nothing, in the final analysis, is important any more.There is no truth, there is no standpoint. Today, in fact, truth is regarded as far too subjective a concept for us to find therein a universally valid standard. The distinction between genuine and fake seems to have been abolished. Everything is to some extent negotiable. Is...

What is Sloth? It is More Subtle and Devilish Than Mere Laziness By: Msgr. Charles PopeOne of the more misunderstood of the cardinal sins is sloth. This is because most see it merely as laziness. But there is more to sloth than that. Let¬ís take a moment and consider some aspects of the cardinal sin we call sloth.The Greek word we translate as sloth is ŠľÄőļő∑őīőĮőĪ akedia (a = absence + kedos = care), meaning indifference or negligence. St. Thomas speaks of sloth as sorrow for spiritual good. By it, we shun spiritual good as too toilsome (cf ST...

Almost 20 years ago, the journal First Things published an article by a famous German theologian named Wolfhart Pannenberg titled ďHow to Think About Secularism.Ē In the article, Pannenberg outlined the nature of secularism and how it threatened the church, also explaining how the church should not respond to the challenge. Looking back, itís clear that many of our pastors and leaders have done the opposite of what he counseled, and we are paying the price for it today. Pannenberg himself was orthodox in some of his beliefs and unorthodox in others, but Iím focusing here on his observations about...

Geneva, March 3, Interfax - Aggressive secularism is picking up pace in the West, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. "I can't leave out problems which Christians have been experiencing in many counties, where it is deemed politically incorrect to speak about one's Christian identity and where Christian values, the nucleus of European civilization, are being shunned," he said at a high-level conference on the defense of Christians in Geneva. "Aggressive secularism is picking up pace, and the notions of moral decency and traditional ethnic, cultural and religious identity are being eroded," the Russian foreign minister said. "Vandalism and the...

A couple of years ago, a former archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, warned Christians that the faith is in danger. Here is the article: http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Christianity-Anglican-Extinct-Carey/2013/11/25/id/538425/ According to the article, only 800,000 people are church-goers in Britain. Britain had a total population of 64 million in 2013. This means that only 1.25 percent of the British population are church-going Christians. The future of America seems to be going in Britain's direction. I wanted to add an update to Lord Carey's observations. A lot of people think the Third World is the future of Christianity. But Brazil, the largest Latin American country,...

It's a common, but misconceived, idea that Western people have grown disillusioned with religion because of religious wars in the distant or - in the almost unique case of Northern Ireland - recent past. People on the Left have taken this view with a bit more consistency than those on the Right. Think of John Lennon's song Imagine. He saw world peace and unification in the abolition of what he considered as all causes of division and conflict: religion, class, nation. Lennon was, to put it in euphemistically-correct language, "cognitively challenged", but at least one can't deny his consistency...

For believing Christians, the identity of Jesus was announced at the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451): Jesus was always divine and human simultaneously. How did this work? Very simply, ďitís a mystery.Ē But a fuller explanation of how a peasant became God is the subject of Bart Ehrmanís latest book, ďHow Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher From Galilee,Ē and the subject of contentious debate among scholars. Several colleagues published a response titled ďHow God Became Jesus.Ē Mr. Ehrman, a professor at the University of North Carolina, is a popular speaker on the evolution of Christian theology...

In the past, this season was marked by a greater interest in divinity, the family hearth and the joy of children. Increasingly our society has been turning away from such simple human pleasures, replacing them with those of technology. Despite the annual holiday pageantry, in the West religion is on the decline, along with our societyís emphasis on human relationships. Atheism seems to be getting stronger, estimated at around 13 percent worldwide but much higher in such countries as Japan, Germany and China. ďThe world is going secular,Ē claims author Nigel Barber. ďNothing short of an ice age can stop...

In the latest attack on home education, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper has proclaimed that only public schools can educate children to be productive members of society ó implying that parents are incapable of educating kids. "Government should do what people individually can't do, or can't do well themselves," the Democrat said in a speech at a luncheon last week. "You know, educating our young people, making sure our roads are designed and built properly, making sure our communities are safe." Most are adamant that by his comment, the governor made it very clear that he believes parents are not capable...

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (December 22, 2014) -- An orangutan that has lived 20 years at the Buenos Aires zoo is entitled to some legal rights enjoyed by humans, an Argentine court has ruled, a decision the ape's attorney called unprecedented and a ticket to greater freedom. The ruling comes a month after a local animal rights group filed a habeas corpus writ in favor of Sandra, who was born in Germany but has lived in captivity in Buenos Aires most of her life. "Following a dynamic ... judicial interpretation, it is necessary to recognize that the animal is subject to...

A PTA of a public school in the Boston area apparently worked behind closed doors to prevent elementary school students from being exposed to the eeeeevil dangers of a...Christmas tree!!! (Cue the impending doom music.) It's gotten so bad that one news report says that one board member may step down over the controversy over the fear of†exposing children to secondhand Christmas.Sheesh. The Butler Elementary School PTA made a decision to cancel the annual field trip to see "The Nutcracker" ballet because supposedly some parents complained about the Christmas tree on stage in some scenes. Maybe they should've taken the...

Nine years as chaplain of an 800 bed state mental hospital taught me that one can be mentally ill and highly intelligent. Talking with the patients often was more interesting than talking with their psychiatrists. Mad men are not mindless. They just do not distinguish between delusion and fact. Chesterton summed this up by aphorism: ¬ďThe madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.¬Ē This explains why it is often hard to distinguish university faculties from mental wards, save for the latter being kept under...

In case you didn¬ít know it, if you are a conservative Christian, you are just like Boko Haram and ISIS. At least, that¬ís what the secularists are saying. More absurd still, they actually believe this.Of course, secularism has been waging war against religion for centuries, but more recently, in America and Europe, the rhetoric of secularism has become more extreme and shrill.When the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby, critics complained that the Court¬ís eminently reasonable decision was ¬ďanti-scientific.¬ĒAs noted by Jonathan Adler in the Washington Post, ¬ďThe Daily Beast¬Ďs Sally Kohn decried the Court¬ís reliance on ¬Ďbunk...

SECULARISM The aggressive secularization of America As an American I have watched with sadness, the eroding of our Christian values and standards of living. When I was in grade school, each day was begun with the reading of the Bible, broadcast over the intercom system (yes, we had the technology when I was little). At my graduation from high school, there were two public gatherings in the gym, the first being the baccalaureate service, where the minister chosen by the seniors gave an inspirational address, and religious hymns and patriotic songs were sung. The second public gathering was the actual...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Cardinal George Pell said working-group reports from the Synod of Bishops on the family finally give a true picture of the assembly's views, counteracting what he characterized as a misleading midterm report. "We wanted the Catholic people around the world to know actually what was going on in talking about marriage and the family and, by and large, I think people will be immensely reassured," Cardinal Pell, prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, told Catholic News Service Oct. 16, the day the reports were published. "We're not giving in to the secular agenda; we're not...

Recent developments make me wonder if Church leaders and Catholic institutions in the U.S. are not, ďon the unawares,Ē helping to further crucial parts of the secularist-leftist political and cultural narrative.Several months ago, on a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border one high-ranking prelate criticized ďthe xenophobic ranting of a segment of the populationĒ on the immigration question. This summer another prelate spoke about the need to ďdismantle systemic racismĒ in the wake of the events in Ferguson, Missouri. Reacting to the ďcoming outĒ of a prominent athlete, another high-ranking prelate spoke approvingly and insisted that the Bible instructs us...

One of the fundamental problems in our society is that we argue with one another from positions of moral parochialism: we assume that the other party shares our frames of reference. That may have been true in the earlier years of our nation, but I propose that this is no longer the case. Today, we argue from different and fundamentally incompatible moral codes and value systems. It is the dichotomy between the two that confuses our discourse and creates great dangers for our country.

It is critical for us who would preach the Gospel to ponder what sorts of presuppositions our listeners bring to the conversation. Today, sadly, there are many trends that have poisoned the culture and make our task much more difficult.But difficult does not mean impossible. And thus it helps to describe modern mindsets, not to despair of them, but to describe them with some insight, rather than be vaguely aware of them. And being more clear on the presuppositions that people bring we can better speak our message and also go to work on those presuppositions and ask people to...

In Iraq, ISIS is bulldozing churches and turned the Cathedral of Mosul into a mosque. Meanwhile, many thousands of miles away‚Ä¶‚Ä¶ in the National Post: What¬ís happening to Montreal¬ís churches? Quebec finding new ways to preserve its heritage in a secular ageMONTREAL ¬ó Weight machines fill the space where once there were pews, and visitors sip nutritional green smoothies, not communion wine. But despite its dramatic transformation into a private gym and spa, the onetime Dominican St. Jude¬ís Shrine on Montreal¬ís St. Denis Street remains a temple of sorts.¬ďIt becomes almost a religion for some people,¬Ē Sonya Audrey Bonin, general...

The downsides of using poll data to understand the arc of historyIn one of the most ambiguous poll questions ever, Gallup has asked Americans to once again act as a tenuous bellwether for the impending death of religion. In a May survey, more than 1,000 people were asked to pick between two vague sense impressions of faith: "Do you believe that religion can answer all of today's problems, or that religion is largely old fashioned and out of date?" Shockingly, only 13 percent of people took the out of answering "no opinion" or "other," which is one way of saying...

Political hysteria has reached a crescendo over a very defined and limited ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby with this weekís 5-4 Supreme Court decision. As many commentators have noted, including the editors at National Review, ďThat this increase in freedom makes some people so very upset tells us more about them than about the Courtís ruling.Ē

I have always been a believer. Among other reasons, thatís because I think rationality demands it.When I talk about ďbeliefĒ here, I mean it in a very broad sense, which is not synonymous with ďCatholicĒ or even ďChristianĒ; Sikhs, Hindus and Zoroastrians might all qualify, and I myself was raised in the LDS church and not (according to Romeís decree) validly baptized until the age of 25. When I speak here of ďbelievers,Ē I am distinguishing those who are prepared to believe in more than what eye can see, ear can hear or elaborate scientific machine can detect.I wouldnít...

Today marks the 100th anniversary of Motherís Day. It is the fourth-biggest holiday for spending, according to CNBC. It is the third-largest card-sending holiday, according to Hallmark, with Americaís moms receiving more than 133 million cards. Itís the biggest phone-calling day of the year, according to History.com, with call volume spiking by as much as 37 percent. And itís the biggest holiday of the year for dining out, according to the National Restaurant Association. What most of us are unaware of is the Christian origin of Motherís Day. It wasnít about obligatory Motherís Day presents or perfunctory Motherís Day greeting...

WASHINGTON (RNS) More than two years after first making his request, Army Maj. Ray Bradley can now be known as exactly what he is: a humanist in the U.S. military.Ray Bradley listens during a planning meeting for the Central North Carolina Atheists and Humanists. Photo by John Nichols, courtesy of U.S. Army This image is available for Web and print publication. For questions, contact Sally Morrow. ¬ďI¬ím able to self-identity the belief system that governs my life, and I¬íve never been able to do that before,¬Ē said Bradley, who is stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina and works on...

...Over the past 50 years or so, these post-Protestants have gradually formed the core of a new and fascinating social class in America....And we can recognize their origins in mainline Protestantism when we discern some of the ways in which they see the world and themselves. They are, for the most part, politically liberal, preferring that government rather than private associations address social concerns. They remained puritanical and highly judgmental, at least about health. And like all puritans, they are willing to use law to compel behavior they think right. Nonetheless, they do not think of themselves as akin to...